Vive
by Heir of Darkness
Summary: Pg for depression. It's set after the war, and nothing is like before ... Mostly descriptive piece.


Vive beta-read Author's note: Warning for slight depression and weirdness. The title means 'Live'. 

Disclaimer: I own nothing. JKR owns all. 

Vive   
By Heir of Darkness 

It was daybreak, no dashing bloody sunrises, no pink clouds softening the sky and no pastel blue above the land, just a sharp cutting breeze and a moody gray dome of humidity. Slowly, the light emerged from the darkness little by little, outlining the trees as ink-dark shapes against a background of grayish-white, their tops gently swaying with the wind, as if dancing to the sound of an invisible flute. The brushing of the leaves against each other produced a soft sound of bristling, and the surface of a lake as still as silent down the hills was seldom agitated. Standing on one of the hills surrounding it, one could gaze over the entire panorama till it was cut by a thick and dark forest, mysterious and threatening. The grounds, now left abandoned and untaken care of, must once have been a pretty enough place with cleanly cut bushes, delicate flowers and shadowy trees, and you could still make out the white lanes of ancient gravel paths. 

If you squinted your eyes hard enough, deafened your ears to the howling of the wind and breathed deep and long lungful of fresh morning air, sometimes you would hear clear and joyous laughter like a blow in your face. Do not awaken with the memories its innocence and carelessness aroused in your heart. Then maybe, just maybe, will come to you, the delicious and painful smell of the flowers of yore. Do not awaken with the harsh sting its gentleness and lightness brought into your eyes. Last, when you empty your mind of all remembrances of the times more recent than the year of the end, if you were still enough to make yourself melt into the background and forgotten by the timid ghosts of the past, maybe you will catch sight, from the very corner of your eyes, of a pair of bright eyes, the billowing of a black robe   
and cloak in the winter, the tail of a flying broomstick on your left, or the flash of blinding white light on your right, followed by hearty laughter. And in front of you, where there was nothing, would lay an ancient castle like a dream, of even bricks and colorful glass windows, living as livingly as the place was now dead. 

And irremediably, your gaze will rise from the ground, to stare straight into a heap of old stones and broken might, from which sometimes shone a glint of something that could be gold or silver. But there was nobody left to go and check. From even its ruins arose a strong feeling of what might be called bravery or foolishness, like the one who would stand among the cowering crowd, claiming by his stare his fearlessness in front of the all-powerful. As if, for a time longer than time itself, the old castle had stood its ground taunting the other side to come and defeat it, and finally had grown weary of its long wait and pretence of pureness. Eventually, it had been glad to fall and at last lie in peace in the world which is over these unworthy considerations of white and black, of goodness and evil, of life and death, a world in which everyone stands the same ground and forgets and lives on without a thought for fight. It sank without a scream neither a plaint, silently like the last raindrop of a storm falls into the ocean. 

He stood on the top of a hill, silent and still like everything in the picture, the only movement and sound about him being the wild flapping and billowing of his cloak around him. Black. So are his robes, his hair. Even his glasses. Black. Black like ill luck, like death. Black like mourning. A figure of black against the now dirty green trees and dried grass. How old was he? One could not tell. Not too old, neither too young. His height was the one of a man, with the width of a boy. He stood a little hunched, his head bent, his eyes closed and his lips half-parted. He wasn't there. His gaze had already followed the above-described trajectory, eyes only open just what was needed to see approximately the outlines of the scene, and take in once more the blurry image of the past. He didn't need more. Without a blink, he saw the forgotten school, the children running around the grounds, imprecise, always moving, perpetual laughter, shouting, running, playing, cursing and yelling … The murmur of the students trying to learn their lessons … The scratching of the quills running out of ink against the cracking parchment … The bubbling of the shimmering surface of a cauldron ? And then the smell … The smell, the blood and the silence … Red … Red and green … Slowly dripping … Lightning fast. 

He sighed. Didn't move in anyways. Stood still and silent just like before. Unmovable. Rooted to his spot of regret and horror. Contemplating what might have been. Living in the past. With his eyes turned back into himself to look at what he had lived long ago, and will never live again. Searching for water to quench his thirst, food to satisfy his hunger. 

A gentle breeze blew in his face, lifting his hair from his face. For an instant, one who would have looked him in the face could have seen a pronounced blood-red scar stretching from his left eyebrow up to the roots of his hair. It was the only spot of color about him. A deep, dark, cruel red. Immediately, even one who had never known his story could say: 'This man was meant for greatness, what's he doing here?' But there was no answer. Only the howling of the wind and the flapping of his robes. 

Suddenly, he stiffened. He turned around sharply on his heels, unable to face the unreal sight anymore. He pressed his eyelids tightly against one another, clenching his fists and his jaw. A tear rolls, for a second, out of his right eye, straining his hollow cheek with a thread of silver. No other follow. The human soul sometimes comes to a point when the soul his dry and the heart insensible. He lifted his face against the wind, and the salty taste of the tear in his mouth   
made his lower lip quiver. 

His eyes suddenly jerked open. And something in the heart of the observer would shatter, deep down and untouchable, something like a conviction disappearing like smoke, a small flame which had flickered which had extinguished discreetly. No light color of hope or life, no clear blue, nor vivid green, neither warm brown or even stormy gray. Nothing. Nothing but a pit of darkness out of darkness, of two yawning holes looking into Hell, of a black blacker than black.   


Author's note: And for those who didn't realize, this is Hogwarts.   


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